Endowed with abundant tourism potential, Dak Nong Province defines that tourism development will be a key breakthrough field in socio-economic development in 2014 and subsequent years. Therefore, the provincial government has actively instructed and adopted many long-term tourism development strategies to speed up the progress of socio-economic restructuring of the province.

To date, the province has many tourism attractions in operation where draw a large number of toursits every year. Tourist arrivals reached 619,000 from 2011 to 2014, of which, domestic tourists were 593,110 and international tourists were 25,890. Tourism revenue grossed VND83.5 billion. However, these results were incommensurated with the potential and development requirements of the province. Hence, tourism development is one of the key task now.

Awakening tourism potential

Dak Nong Province's tourism advantage is rich natural resource. Apart from picturesque waterfalls anf lakes like Dray Sap - Gia Long - Trinh Nu Waterfall, Dak Glun Waterfall and Lieng Nung Waterfall, the province also has dozens of caves along the Serapok River where tourism attrations and resorts can be built. Besides, Dak Nong has many historical and cultural relics like Bon Bu Nor historic site, Dak Mil Prison, Buon Bour Village and B4 Resistance Was Base as well as unique cultural artistic values like gong. Lithophone, rudimentary musical instrucment made from bamboo, and folk dance and lyrics of M'nong, Ma, Ede and other ethnic group. In particular, the province has discovered volcanic caves in Krong No District with a total length of about 25 km, stretching from the volcanic crater at the Choah Village to Dray Sap Waterfall along the Serapok River where dozens of caverns are found. The largest cave, measured 1,066m wide and thousands of metre wide, is a particular landscape formed by regurgutating lava.

To tap these tourism advantages and potential and to promote socio-economic development, Dak Nong Province is making every effort to be an appealing tourist attraction in Vietnam and in the region, said Mr Le Khac Ghi, Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Accordingly, based on available tourism resources, the province will develop 2 types of tourism, namely ecological tourism and cultural tourism. Specifically, by building tourist routes and destinations, Dak Nong also focus on developing locally characteristic tourism products like waterfall tourism, spiritual tourism and mountain climbing tourism. At the same time, the province also speeds up tourism investment projects.

The province also considers creating favourable conditions for travel agencies across the country to survey and build tour programmes to serve tourists. It also steps up cooperation with provinces and cities nationwide to set up high-quality tours like Dak Nong - Da Lat - Ninh Thuan; Dak nong - Dak Lak - Nha Trang and Dak Nong - HCM City - Binh Thuan. It also organizes cultural and tourism events to introduce its images and culture to tourists.

Developing tourism infrastracture

Director Le Khac Ghi said the local poor infrastructure system, particularly tourism infrastructure, is dragging on the development of tourism industry. Artery traffic routes like National Roads 14, 14C and 28 have their damage and degeneration slowly recovered. Besides, most tourism companies have small operating scales and lack finance to ensure the progress of their projects. Standard tourism products are still being shaped.

To cope with this reality, Dak Nong is focusing its investment capital on developing infrastructure in tourism attractions to tap local tourism potential. Thus far, the province has 07 tourist site contruction projects with a total registered investment capital of VND913.1 billion. Notably, Dak G'lun Waterfall ecological tourism site, covering 91ha in Tuy Duc District, costs VND11 billion. This site is a key point for the province to develop tourism in the southwest and supports of the opening of tours connecting HCM City - Da Lat - Da Dung - Dak G'lung. Some other tourism sites are being prepared for deployment.

In addition to general incentives provided by the central government, investors are granted local preferences stipulated in Resolution No.12/2013/NQ-HDND dated July 19, 2013 of the People's Council of Dak Nong Province on the issue of encouragement and support policies on industrial, trade, tourism and services development investment in the province of Dak Nong. Additionally, the province also streamlines administrative procedures to facilitate investors carrying out their projects.

Dak Nong Province also encourages the development of handicraft production to introduce its locally charasteristic items to tourists, trains tourism officials and draws more investment capital for tourism industry.